Days passed with no communication from Roger. He isn’t the kind who becomes hopelessly over-invested in people he barely knows. If he was interested, he was in no rush to put his interest into action.
I decided to call him. He sounded quite surprised to hear from me, and it was a little awkward. I could hear young adults talking in the background, the rush and whack of computer-game aggression. Once we had covered what sort of a day we’d both had, a silence descended. I let it run on. “So, was there a reason you called?” he asked eventually.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” I said, grimacing at myself. “To say hello.”
“Well that’s very nice,” he said. Another silence descended. I was determined not to be the one to bring it to an end. Eventually, on the crackly line, I heard him say, “Well, I suppose we should organise dinner here, or at your place if you prefer, over the next few days.” It was my turn to say that would be lovely. That would be really lovely, I repeated. I was smiling when we rang off. I rang a girlfriend and said I’d been wrong: Roger was interested. He was just diffident by nature, and preferred things to take an unhurried course. That was just his style. “Great, great,” she said, warily. “I hope you’re right.”
My phone rang shortly after this, and it was Roger. He had volunteered to host our cosy dinner. “I should have asked if there’s anything you don’t eat,” he said. I told him I was more or less omnivorous. What was he thinking of doing? “Well, that’s just it,” he said. “I’m wondering what to cook.”
“Well,” I said. “I don’t know. We could keep it simple and just have a chicken. Chicken’s easy and reliable isn’t it. Chicken and baked potatoes and salad.”
“Then that’s what I’ll cook,” Roger said. “Cheerio, then.”
Something about this conversation bothered me.
His home was actually part of a house, a small flat, somewhat run down and chaotic, though in a nice way, with piles of books on tables, papers, newspapers, things he had collected from other continents, things belonging to the son who still lived at home (who was out with his mates at the pub). Roger was apologetic about the imperfectly tidy state of it. I said it didn’t matter, because it didn’t. We had a conversation about post-divorce living arrangements, and how they can knock the stuffing out of you, something I’d had painful experience of, losing my home in the great divide.
“You understand this,” he said, looking at me differently. I was leaning against a worktop in his kitchen as he scissored the ends off green beans, as he half withdrew the chicken to put rosemary and sea salt on it. I did. I felt a new thing for him: empathy.
I saw how a man who, unexpectedly, in midlife, had been dumped for someone else, might struggle to keep up his old sense of self, his old optimism. How he might take on an Indiana Jones look, indicative of hopes of adventure, while being careful not to get into anything new that might result in further pain. I saw the polite charm, the detachment, the silk shirt and the expensive restaurant differently, and the way he had surrounded himself with objects that reminded him he had been places and done things, nourishing this unexpected new stage of his life with icons from the past that would carry him forward.
In the kitchen, after we ate, I put my arms round his neck, and kissed him, and he kissed me back, and then we half-walked, half-staggered into his bedroom, falling into bed and laughing. Then we tried to consummate our friendship, and Roger found that he couldn’t. He was deeply mortified, groaning and falling face down on to the bed and turning away from me, saying he was embarrassed. This had become a problem of late, he said. I told him it didn’t matter a bit. I rubbed his shoulders and back, and he made happy, relaxed noises, and I rested my face against his neck, and we talked in the dark about other things.
I was half-dozing when I heard the main door opening and closing. It was Roger’s son, calling out – “Dad?” Roger dressed swiftly and went into the hall, and had a conversation with him about the day, and didn’t say anything about me, the woman in his bed.
Stella Grey is a pseudonym
